Happy Birthday
by Chiiyo86
Summary: Sam's birthday takes a turn for the worse.


A/N:_ It's a timestamp to my fic "Hover Through the Fog and Filthy Air," that I wrote as a Christmas present for my dear friend wave obscura who wanted Dean having a flashback and Sam taking care of him. I don't think it's necessary to read the longer fic to understand this one, but it would help. Thank you to wave obscura who had to beta her own present! Warning, there are some references to a suicide attempt._

_Also, I have problems with reviews on this website, so if I don't reply to your review it's that I can't!  
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Disclaimer: _I don't own anything Supernatural related._

ooo

"Happy birthday, bro. Blow out the candle."

Sam looks down at the cupcake in front of him, at the lonely candle, and looks up at his brother. Dean's trying to smile and it's… kind of horrible. Like someone took bits and pieces from an old picture of his brother and reassembled it wrong.

"Sammy? Do I need to sing happy birthday or something? Because, dude…"

Sam tries his own smile, which probably doesn't look much more convincing than Dean's. He makes a show of taking a deep breath in, hoping against all hope that he can make his brother smile more genuinely. To his credit Dean does his best, even for a moment looks like he's going for a chuckle, but it dies quickly. Sam blows out a breath, feeling like crying. The candle's little flame vanishes and the absence of its light is the most miserable thing he's ever seen.

"Aren't you gonna eat it?" Dean says.

Sam starts nibbling at the cupcake. Maybe it's good, he's honestly not able to tell. Dean hasn't ordered anything. He's not hungry; he never is these days. People around them are chatting, coming and going, laughing. The Cheerful Tortoise is more crowded than Sam would have thought, and he's starting to regret coming here, even though it was Dean who insisted on it, for some strange reason. Dean hasn't been exactly looking for human contact lately, but he made a big deal of going out for Sam's birthday.

The door's bell rings and they both turn their heads on instinct to see who it is. It's a family of four, a young exhausted looking couple and two toddlers who surge in excitedly, ignoring their parents' calls.

Sam cringes when the family settles on the table right next to theirs. They got a corner table, because it's the most defendable position, but now Sam thinks they made a mistake. All the tables around them are full and people have drawn back their chairs to make themselves comfortable, effectively blocking all of Sam and Dean's escapes. It looks like a trap – but Sam knows how ridiculous that thought is; they're at peace now, and he will repeat that to himself every day until he believes it. Sam makes himself relax, eats another bite of his cupcake before throwing a look at his brother.

Dean's looking at the cupcake Sam's progressively tearing apart like it's the most fascinating thing in the world. He probably looks alright to everyone else, if slightly creepy in his intense focus on the cupcake, but Sam knows better. Dean's right hand is circling his left arm, his thumb rubbing back and forth on the inside of his wrist. It looks innocuous, but Sam has seen him do that before and even if he's not exactly sure what it means he knows it's not a good sign.

"Dean, are you…"

Dean winces, like he can't bear the sound of Sam's voice.

"Gotta go to the bathroom," he says abruptly.

"Okay. Wanna…" It's going to sound silly but he can't help himself. "Want me to go with you?"

"It's the fucking bathroom, Sam. I promise not to slit my wrists."

The words barely register to Sam – the amount of shit he's been taking from Dean for the last couple of weeks has desensitized him. Dean sounds annoyed, but he's not making eye contact. Sam can't be sure with the way Dean's head is bent down, but his eyes look kind of unfocused. Sam feels his insides twist with unease as he watches Dean stand up and try to make his way between the chairs and table. He's blocked by the toddlers playing on the ground. Instead of telling them to get out of his way, Dean falls back into his seat.

Sam opens his mouth to say something to the kids' parents, who seem engrossed in their dinner and unaware of their children, but Dean's suddenly pushing at the table like he's trying to give himself space to breathe.

"Sam, I, uh, have," he says. He starts to push himself up again, and before Sam has the time to do anything, Dean's falling.

"Dean!"

He vaguely hears some people around him scream, but his attention is all on his brother. When he kneels at Dean's side, he sees that his brother is shaking uncontrollably like he's having a seizure. Sam knows that's not it, though. He pushes away chairs and tables until there's an empty circle big enough that Sam is sure Dean's not going to hurt himself.

"Stand back!" he barks at people who don't get out of his way quickly enough.

"Should I call a doctor?"

The voice sounds familiar, but Sam needs a few seconds to place it. It's Elena, the Cheerful Tortoise's owner. On the floor he can see the shadow of her bending over him, and he has to fight the urge shove at her.

"No," he says. "Don't call anyone. I know what to do. I'm gonna take care of him."

"What should I do? What can I do to help?"

_Nothing,_ is what comes to Sam's mind, but instead he says, "Make everyone go away." His eyes are on the floor, on Dean, but he hears the whispers and he knows that they're all watching, commenting. "Please, make them stop looking at him."

He thinks she's going to say no. It's her business, and people these days need all the money they can get. Sam and Dean are only two customers, why would she close on their account?

"I'm sorry, we're closing!" Sam hears Elena shout. "Please leave! I will have pie on the house tomorrow, but please, you have to leave now!"

People leave more quickly and silently than Sam would have thought, there's barely any protest. Once the room is empty, Sam can focus again on his brother. He knows what to do, but for a moment his mind is blank and he needs a second to stop his hands from shaking.

"Dean."

Dean's curled on himself, trembling, and his whimpers pierce through Sam's heart.

"Dean, if you hear me, you have to repeat after me."

The noises that come from Dean sound like sobs, but Sam still goes on.

"Repeat after me: one."

Still nothing from Dean. Sam doesn't know if Dean isn't aware of him or just can't make himself speak. He has barely any idea of what is going on in Dean's mind at the moment and it makes him feel obscurely guilty. He tries to ignore the feeling and hang on what Caroline, Dean's shrink, told him: "You have to be patient and calm, to keep going until you have caught his attention and made him follow your lead." If it's what Dean needs from him, Sam will have all the patience in the world.

"Dean, you have to say what I say: one."

"O-one."

Not missing a beat, not letting himself enjoy the flutter of relief he feels, Sam continues, "Two."

"T-two."

"Three."

"Three."

It's more assured, less shaky this time.

"Eight," Sam says.

"Eight," Dean repeats.

"Green."

"Green."

Sam crawls closer to Dean, and carefully puts a hand on his shoulder. When Dean doesn't make a move to push him away, Sam presses a little.

"Can you tell me five things you see, Dean?"

Dean's eyelids flutter, and he moans as he tries to raise his head.

"Chair," he groans.

"Good, good, keep going."

"Brick wall. Table."

"You're doing great, Dean."

"Ugly-ass tortoise. A hand."

Sam realizes Dean's talking about his hand, and he wriggles his fingers.

"Fingers are moving."

"Yeah, they're mine. Now tell me five things you can hear."

They keep doing this for a while, and Sam's knees start to hurt after a while, his head too, but he doesn't stop until Dean's shaking has subsided enough that Sam can sit him on a chair.

"Will you be okay here for a few seconds? I'll be right back."

It's obvious that Dean feels like shit. He sits curled in on himself like he's in pain, and for all Sam knows, he probably is.

"Dean?"

"Come back soon."

Sam looks around the room to see if he can see Elena anywhere, and when he doesn't find her he goes to the kitchen.

"Sam? Is your brother alright?"

She looks so worried, fiddling with the hem of her blue and yellow headscarf, that for a moment Sam doesn't know how to respond.

"Yeah," he says. "Well, maybe be not right now but he's gonna be okay, eventually."

"Okay, good."

They stay silent for a moment. Sam realizes that she's not going to ask, and that's what prompts him to say, "This isn't the first time it's happened. He has, uh, PTSD."

He doesn't have to add anything, she's already nodding in understanding. Since the end of the war, PTSD is almost like the common flu, spreading through the country like wildfire.

"Okay, well, I'm gonna take my brother back… home. Thank you for…"

She cuts him off. "It was nothing. Really, it was the least I could do."

He doesn't try to thank her again, just nods and hurries back to his brother. He has to lead Dean by the hand, out of the restaurant and through the campus, and his brother just stumbles behind him, silent and subdued. When they arrive at the house, the old and creaking Simon Benson House that is still hard to call home, Sam takes Dean to bed and help him lie down over the covers.

"Where are we?" Dean asks.

"We were at the Cheerful Tortoise. Now we're at the house."

"Oh."

"Do you remember what happened?"

"No."

"You had a flashback while we were out for my birthday."

Dean shots him a confused look.

"Didn't that happen last week?"

Sam bites his lip.

"No, it just happened."

"I don't…"

"It's not important. Just try to rest."

Dean closes his eyes, and Sam sits on his own bed, watching his brother sleep, or at least lie down with his eyes closed. He stands up at one point only to get some ibuprofen from the bathroom for his worsening headache, before going back to sit and watch Dean like a creepy stalker. After a while, Dean stirs up and turns on his side, looking at Sam with more lucid eyes.

"I had a flashback?" he asks.

"Yeah. You remember something?"

"Trapped. I was trapped."

Dean's scratching the back of his hand, and it's a little too frantic to be an innocent absent-minded gesture. Sam is tempted to grab his wrist to make him stop but the risk that it will trigger another flashback is far too great. Instead he says, "I think the flashbacks are getting more frequent. We should mention it to Caroline. You're supposed to get better, not worse."

"Sam, no."

"If she can't help you what good is she for? She's supposed to help you!"

"No, Sam, I mean that the flashbacks aren't getting worse. Before I… _before,_ I was just hiding them from you. When I was starting to feel a little… off, I went out and I just… tried to ride it out."

Sam's left without words at that revelation. He looks into his memories and remembers how fond of taking walks Dean had become after the war. Sam generally preferred to lay around in the dark to soothe the almost permanent pain in his head. He just figured that Dean needed to get away from time to time.

Dean's scratching is leaving red angry marks on his skin, and Sam's starting to feel a little frantic himself, a little like he wants to crawl out of his skin and be someone else, somewhere else for a while.

"It wasn't a good idea to go out tonight," he says. "There are too many people in the evenings. I don't know why you insisted we go."

It makes him feel like an asshole that he's irritated at Dean for that, but he can't help it. He just doesn't understand why Dean wanted that, and it sure didn't end well.

"You remember that Christmas before I went to Hell?" Dean says. He's stopped scratching and his hands are now both closed into fists.

"Of course, I do," Sam says. "Not the kind of thing you forget."

"You didn't want to do it. It hurt you."

"I remember."

"But you still did it, you wanted to do something for me. Well, maybe I wanted to do something for you, Sam. Maybe I thought you'd want not be stuck in this house with your crazy brother for once." He snorts. "It kinda backfired on me I guess."

Sam doesn't like it when Dean calls himself crazy. He should call him on it, but he doesn't have the energy to start this particular argument tonight. He kneels by his brother's bed, gently takes Dean's fists in his own hands and makes him unclench his fingers, patiently. Dean lets him do it without a word.

"It's going to be better, you'll see," Sam says, making himself believe it. "It won't be like this forever."

If he repeats it everyday, maybe it'll start being true.


End file.
